Lills Travels in Santa Claus Land | Page 9

could they help
it?
But somehow nobody thought of sending her home.
When she reached the bridge she was hungry, and told the
"bridge-man" she was "fond of cookies." His wife gave her a
caraway-cake shaped like a leaf.
"I'm fond o' that one," said she, with her mouth full. "Please give me
two ones."
Just fancy it! Begging food at people's houses! Yet her mamma had
tried to teach her good manners, little as you may think it.
"I don't believe she has had any supper. It must be she is running
away," said the bridge-man's wife, as Flaxie left her door. "I ought to
have stopped her; but somebody will, of course."
But nobody did. People only laughed at her kitty, and then passed on.
Soon the sun set, and the new moon shone white against the blue sky.
Flaxie had often seen the moon, but it looked larger and rounder than
this. What ailed it now?
"Oh, I know," said she, "God has doubled it up."
She had changed her mind, and did not want to go to her
grandmother's.
"Mr. Pratt fought I was bare-headed, and grandma'll fink I'm
bare-headed. Guess I won't go to g'andma's, kitty, I'll go to
preach-man's house; preach-man will want to see you."

On she went till she came to the church. Then she sat down on the big
steps, dreadfully tired.
"Oh, my yubbers ache so! Now go s'eep, Kitty; and when you want to
wake up, call me, and I'll wake you."
This was the last Flaxie remembered. When the postmaster found her,
she was sitting up, fast asleep, with her little tow head against the door,
and the kitty in her arms. The kitty was still alive.
Eva Snow had come and let Ninny out of the closet long ago; and lots
of people had been hunting ever since for Flaxie Frizzle. When the
postmaster and the minister brought her home between them, Mrs.
Gray was so very glad that she laughed and cried. Still she thought
Flaxie ought to be punished.
"O mamma," said Miss Frizzle next morning, very much surprised to
find herself tied by the clothes-line to a knob in the bay-window. "The
men laughed to me, they did! Mr. Lame Jones, he said I was very
cunning!"
But for all that, her mamma did not untie her till afternoon; and then
Flaxie promised "honestly," not to run away again.
Would you trust her?

FIVE POUNDS OF CINNAMON.
They don't name girls "Roxy," and "Polly," and "Patty," and "Sally,"
nowadays; but when the little miss who is my heroine was a lady, those
short, funny old names were not at all old-fashioned. "Roxy,"
especially, was considered a very sweet name indeed. All these new
names, "Eva," and "Ada," and "Sadie," and "Lillie," and the rest of the
fanciful "ies" were not in vogue. Then, if a romantic, highflown young
mamma wished to give her tiny girl-baby an unusually fine name, she
selected such as "Sophronia," "Matilda," "Lucretia," or "Ophelia." In
extreme cases, the baby could be called "Victoria Adelaide."

In this instance baby's mother was a plain, quiet woman; and she
thought baby's grandmother's name was quite fine enough for baby; and
so baby was called "Roxy," and, when she was ten years old, you
would have thought little Roxy fully as old-fashioned as her name.
I think it is her clothes that makes her image look so funny as she rises
up before me. She herself had brown hair and eyes, and a good country
complexion of milk and roses--such a nice complexion, girls! You see
she had plenty of bread and milk to eat; and a big chamber, big as the
sitting-room down stairs, to sleep in--all windows--and her bed stood,
neat and cool, in the middle of the floor; and she had to walk ever so far
to get anywhere--it was a respectable little run even out to the barn for
the hens' eggs; and it was half a mile to her cousin Hannah's, and it was
three quarters to school, and just a mile to the very nearest stick of
candy or cluster of raisins. Nuts were a little nearer; for Roxy's father
had a noble butternut orchard, and it was as much a part of the regular
farm-work in the fall to gather the "but'nuts" as it was to gather the
apples.
Don't you see, now, why she had such a nice complexion? But if you
think it don't quite account for such plump, rosy cheeks, why, then, she
had to chase ever so many ways for the strawberries. Not a strawberry
was raised in common folks' gardens in those days. They grew mostly
in farmers' meadows; and very angry those farmers used to be at such
girls as Roxy in